This month I would like to touch on a very sensitive subject, copyrights and piracy. With the advent of the Internet and hardware capable of copying any subject, we are now seeing copies of almost all of the card models available on the Internet for free. There seem to be two groups who use the three mail lists that cover card models. One group who feels that copying and freely distributing an artists work without their permission is okay. The other group who feels that copying and distributing an artists work without their permission is illegal and unfair to the artist.
Every time this comes up on the different mailing list the justifications that people use for piracy are very amusing. I do not think that I have ever seen a posting that disagreed with the statement that copying and distributing another's work is illegal and a violation of the artist copyright. There have been some statements that if I change the color scheme or markings it is okay. No it is not, as long as you use the originators intellectual product you can not distribute the product. I call your attention to Apple Computer company and the lawsuits they have brought. One that comes to mind was the Orange. The courts said that changing the name and look of the computer did not change the intellectual concepts.
Another was the argument that the distributor should not say anything about piracy since they are already ripping the artist off. Having done some distributing myself and talking with the card model dealers and distributors across the U.S. this is just not so. All of the dealers and distributors do this as a second job, none of then can make a living by distributing card models in this country. Several, myself included, do it as a hobby. We went in with the idea that we would never make any money but would get a chance to see models or supplies that we would not if we did not bring them into the U.S.
The conclusion I have come to is that there are just people who do not care and will continue to pirate models as long as they can. They will use whatever justification that they can come up with to justify their actions. They try to get you to participate in their illegal action not to help you but to get you to send your models to them so they can get them for free. As long as these people are allowed to continue their actions they will suck many into piracy because the temptation is just to great. These people would normally never consider an illegal action but the die hard pirate presents a very persuasive argument that copyright laws do not apply.
To the second group of people I present this argument. Each time you download a pirated card model, the artist does not get a penny for his work. If enough pirated copies are passed around then the artist is basically working for free and will not do so for long. The smaller artists will just quit designing card models and that is a shame. The larger companies are already taking actions, several are no longer distributing models in PDF or any electronic format. All seem to be going to printing and even a type of printing that prevents copying. This will also remove many models from availability for those of us in the U.S.
It is necessary that we all do whatever we can to stop those pirates that are dedicated to, and will use any justification to continue their illegal activities. Hopefully we have saved Maly Modelarz from disappearing by taking steps to help close the Russian pirate site. There has been success in shutting the Modeler to Modeler forum down which was a major pirate gathering place. Not necessarily a good thing as there were many honest card modelers who used the forum as place to exchange information. I urge all mail list administrators, forum moderators and web site owners to continue to keep the pressure on these pirates. We may not be able to stop all this illegal and immoral activity but we can do our best.
